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Britons/Strategic Overview
Stengths *Good economic fundamentals contributing to strong defensive bonuses, alongside fairly powerful infantry. *Good wonder rush potential, either alone as a boomer, or tied in with another faction. Weaknesses *Restricted access to medium-tier units. *Very weak cavalry. *Technological gaps — the Taxation penalty can be crippling for a British player. The 2nd of the two Celtic nations of The Wolf among Lions, the Britons like the Suebi develop the "lower armour for greater benefits" theme, this time concentrating on cost and training speed. This makes them fairly passable as a faction in conventional skirmishes and Conquest scenarios, but makes them very weak in scenarios were there are little to no resources. Unlike the Belgae of Imperivm Invictvm, the Britons only have a bonus in Metal production, so while this means plenty of heavy infantry and spear units, it does little to assuage the British need for stronger infantry. In which case, the Britons will have to rely heavily on their chariotry skills to save the day. As far as non-military strategies go, the Britons have one secret weapon — the Broch. This is in essence a very powerful version of the Nobles' Residence. It doesn't need to be built near a Large City, and it is also very powerful with regards to tactical strength — low-level armies invading a Broch field are often easily decimated, since they are fairly strong like vanilla Forts (they have slightly more HP than a conventional Watchtower). This however is a double-edged sword — Brochs by their nature are costly to build and take an equally long time to erect. However, they also have a Wonder Point bonus of 2, so if you can build enough of these, as well as a Mausoleum before anyone else, you could potentially beat out other civs in a Wonder race, resources willing. The British knack for metallurgy means that for many research areas with military purposes, the Britons have a strong edge over other civs that don't produce the same. The only problem is that they are hobbled by the ability to collect taxes — that is the only issue. Still, being able to generate Peasants (and Slaves) very quickly in a jiffy should be able to help out a fair deal in increasing economic output. Military-wise, the keystone of the British war machine are its infantry. Although they suffer from having low defensive ratings like the Suebi, the key to British strength isn't in focusing on individual units, but in raising, then retaining sufficient numbers of them. British UU sword units are fairly powerful in single combat versus other infantry, while their spear units — the Cemmeinarn , the Calawre and the Rycalawre — are very cheap in comparison to other nations' units. Additionally, two signature British units — once, more, the Cemmeinarn, along with the Cwmyr — also pose interesting strategic options, since they are upgrades of Sword Levies and Warriors. A British player can in the early game amass vast numbers of these units for cheap, then upgrade them at a later time, creating in theory a vast pool of footsoldiers that can easily outnumber and outright anyone else in the field. Unfortunately, this strong point in the British military is also its weakest, because its infantry are slow and it doesn't have good cavalry, the British armies can sometimes be easily taken apart piecemeal by players with better foot "tanks" like heavily-armoured pikemen, or good light cavalry who can either shoot the offending spearmen from a distance or crush them. A diversified army is thus sine qua non for the Briton, relying on cheap spearmen and hard-hitting swordsmen, followed by chariotry and a melange of light and medium infantry, depending on the situation. Ultimately, the best tactic for the Britons is to combine the infantry rush with a tower rush — build cheap Towers to form a strong point to shelter your infantry, and to defend your cheap but weak armies while they are being trained. And if any attacks are taken out, it should not be simple raids — the British units are fairly weak and can easily be taken out with proper unit counters, especially ranged cavalry. Rather, it should be full on, relentless human wave attacks using your cheap spearmen whereso possible. Alternatively, you can function as a good ally to other factions as part of a "guard force" for a Wonder race — for instance, a Briton-Egypt team can function well with the Britons creating cheap crack troops for local and ally defence, leaving the Egyptians to concentrate on building Wonders (with some assistance from the Briton by building a Mausoleum complex of course). Category:Britons